With the advent of the use of computers and their associated accessories, there has been a proliferation of expensive but highly portable equipment such as laptop and handheld computers, external CD ROM drives, and tape backup devices. This equipment has appeared in such places as offices, schools, laboratories, and on display in retail stores, and needs to be secured. Traditional locks are used to prevent the theft of such equipment. However, because of the multitude of these products, it is impractical to always have someone present to prevent a thief from breaking the lock and removing the equipment.
There have been mechanical locks designed that can be slipped into the floppy drive of a computer in order to keep the computer from being used by unauthorized individuals. However, with the present invention, the computer can not only not be used, it can not be stolen nor even opened and the valuable internal parts can also not be removed without first setting off an alarm.